


Immurement

by Caffinated_Story



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Claustrophobia, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 20:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11539962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffinated_Story/pseuds/Caffinated_Story
Summary: Immurement (from Latin im- "in" and mūrus "wall"; literally "walling in") is a form of imprisonment, usually for life, in which a person is placed within an enclosed space with no exits.- Prussia doesn't like enclosed spaces. For good reason





	Immurement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [knoflook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knoflook/gifts).



> Based on [this comic](https://theknoflook.tumblr.com/post/163074308280/immurement-i-had-been-doing-research-on-some) by [@theknoflook](https://theknoflook.tumblr.com)

Immurement  
Immurement (from Latin im- "in" and mūrus "wall"; literally "walling in") is a form of imprisonment, usually for life, in which a person is placed within an enclosed space with no exits.

 

Prussia wakes to darkness.  
Darkness and cold engulfing him completely.  
There's nothing but cold smooth stone in every direction – hard and unmoving.

He draws a quick breath, rubs the back of his head and feels the dried blood sticking to his white hair.

A grand castle.  
That was what they wanted.  
A castle that would be undefeated.  
Impervious to outsiders.  
A castle like no other.

Of course, that requires sacrifices.

A sacrifice of builders in the process and a final one for luck.

Prussia grits his teeth and bangs his fists against the hard stone.

“Let me out!” he screams, but his words only echo around him – his desperation flung straight back at him with every pained yell.

Prussia pounds and claws at the stone till his nails chip and his fingers bleed.  
He screams till his throat is raw.  
His knuckles are broken, repaired and broken over and over and over until he has no more strength to stand.

He sinks down and cradles his head in his pounding hands and forces back a choked sound of desperation.

It's impossible to know how long he's been walled inn.  
Hours? Days?  
Impossible to know how long he'll last.  
Weeks? Months? Years?  
Impossible to know if he'll ever escape.

Prussia wipes the tears away with the back of his hand, cursing as he feels the sting of salty tears on open wounds.

After a while he decides to figure out how big his confinement is.  
He has to focus – find a weak spot.

He stands up on shaky legs, steadying himself against the hard stone with a curse.  
If he can't make it out, he'll make their life hell.  
Scratch that – he'll make their life hell if he makes it out.  
If.

Prussia takes a deep breath, steadies his gaze into the darkness and begins to explore the stone prison.

It's big enough to stand and take one small step to each side.  
He can lean against one wall with his back and still touch the wall in front of him.  
Small.  
Tight.  
Suffocating.

Prussia bites his bottom lip as he tries to focus his eyes in the dark.  
He shifts his foot and a loud clang rings out.

Prussia gasps and tries to reach for whatever it is.

Cold metal meets warm hands and he runs his fingers carefully over it.  
It's a chisel. A broken one, but a chisel none the less.

He flips it around in his hands before scraping it against what he assumes, and hopes, is the thinnest portion of the wall.

It makes a grinding sound that echoes around him and makes him shudder.  
It fills the space and his head and it's awful.  
Prussia pauses and the room falls silent once more save fore his breathing.

No, he tells himself and places the chisel back against the stone.  
It's all he has.

It's tedious.  
His already pained hands do him no favours, but Prussia doesn't dare stop – the darkness scares him too much.  
He can't let himself stay here if there's a sliver of hope for him to escape.  
So he scrapes and scrapes and scrapes and scrapes at the rock and surrounding mortar, feeling small pieces crumble and fall to the floor little by little.

Prussia coughs, dust clinging to his skin and throat, coating his insides with every pained breath.  
He'd spit, but his mouth is too dry and he's too aware of how stiff the air feels inside his stone prison already.

'I can't die,' he thinks to himself.  
'I can't die.”  
It becomes a mantra as he chips away at the stone.

The stone cracks and there's a thin ray of light illuminating the broken chisel and his bleeding hands.

Prussia takes a deep breath.  
Light.  
Light is good.

He breathes a small sigh of relief.

There’s less panic now, his heart no longer beats out of his chest in fear.

Light is good.  
Light means air.  
Light means life.

Still, it takes him what he assumes is half a day to get a hole large enough to stick his hand through.  
And it's early morning before he gets enough stone loose to escape.

Shaking, shivering and hyper aware of how utterly stifling darkness feels when he stares back into his confinement, Prussia spits out a curse.

“I hope this castle falls,” he grimaces and kicks the broken stones with his feet.

The chisel is as if stitched to his hand and he keeps his close as he stumbled out of the castle.

He doesn't want to look back.  
He doesn't want to see it ever again, not unless it's to tear it all down with canons.

Never again he tells himself as he runs bloodied hands through white air and colours it a sticky red.

Never again will he be confined like that again.

Never ever, ever, ever again.

Yet, deep down, Prussia knows it won't be the last.

He sticks out too much.  
Too noticeable.

Yet he curses the castle and all it's inhabitants and swears he'll never let anyone do such a thing in his presence.

No one, he thinks with a shudder, deserves such a fate.


End file.
